Ask HN: Should I take this Google job offer?
I've just been offered a job at Google in Mountain View as a software engineer. I'm 35 and I have about 11 years of experience.
I'm from England and have a no-name degree. I would be sponsored for a visa.
So I have a couple of questions:
- Is $110k a good base salary for the Bay area?
- How does 200 GSUs stack up?
- Would you take the job? If so, why? If not, why not?
I work in the Thames valley currently and don't know how my standard of living will change.
I am a C++ programmer who hasn't previously worked for a "name" company and my degree is from a no name poly in the UK.
I must admit I'm tempted to go work on a scale I've never seen before. But Google seems a little more like a large company than a startup these days.
Note: of course some of the details have changed to obfuscate the source.
105 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 151 ms ] threadBut that's not even the point. With $110k you'll live more than great here, and if you're good you can always find new opportunities or a raise.
Unless you have better alternatives, go for it - i'd trade a lot of income to live here rather than back home :)
Having just gone on a trip to Ireland, I'd do it just to get away from the dank darkness that pervades those northern lands:-)
Our move from Padova to Innsbruck, Austria, 4 hours away by car, was far, far more difficult than when I moved from Portland, Oregon to the Bay Area years ago. For instance, there are no one-way rental trucks in Europe that I know of, so if you have furniture or things to move, it's going to be expensive and/or time-consuming.
- Are they surveying base salary? Or total compensation? Or perhaps just including bonuses?
- Are the surveys voluntary? Life has taught me people lie about their income all the time.
If they don't come up on salary, you still can do the following: 1. Join google, work hard, get some experience, make some friends, then 2. Few months (or years) later, look for better opportunity with a better pay. It would be easier for you to find another job.
But, you should really consider other lifestyle factors:
1. If you have a family 110k is way too low, as most likely your wife is not going to be able to work.
2. If you are single, you are more likely going to stay single. If you are in a age (35) that are looking to find a long time partner to form a family, dating in the valley is going to suck. I mean really really bad. SF is a bit better, still not that great to find a quality life partner.
Anyway, though, you know that most people are, in fact, hetero? Without having been given other information it he's got a ~90% chance of guessing right.
But feel free to comment on what it's like for a gay dude in the valley, that would be interesting.
Sure, the ratios aren't awesome, but everywhere else I've worked, women seemed to prefer guys who worked at sears over guys who worked with computers... and that's just not the case in silicon valley.
Career wise? If you don't end up liking it (or think that the salary is too low), you'll be in the Bay area with a visa, Google on your resume and 12+ years of experience (assuming you'll be with Google for at least a year). I would bet your chances of getting another kickass job would be a lot higher than if you didn't take the Google job.
Someone else said rent was $1500. I lived in the Bay Area for 10 years and $1500 gets you a 1BR apartment (maybe 2BR if you want to live south or east). It gets you a share if you want to live in San Francisco. For a house, you are looking at $3K+.
http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
after that, I rented a duplex (a house with a garage that was attached to the garage of another house) for $1500 a month in a reasonably nice part of Sunnyvale. Walking distance to downtown. 2 bedrooms and a garage. Again, the place was old and not particularly well-constructed. It was reasonably maintained and the cosmetics were dealt with, though.
I'm currently in a 2 bedroom apartment, also in sunnyvale, that is very well constructed (good sound insulation, sprinklers, built within the last 20 years) it's walking distance to the AMD building and Fry's. It's around $1750 a month.
All of these places are between 10 and 30 minutes from google, depending on the traffic.
The south bay is quite a bit cheaper and, uh, more 'suburban' than the city. the thing to watch for is that this place was built as a suburb; e.g. most of the construction is done pretty poorly, and much of it is old. We need to knock down some of the old tract homes and build some high rises, but we won't. Of all the places I've lived around here, this apartment is the first one with properly earthed power.
Really, all of Mountain View, Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara is pretty safe. Parts of San Jose can get a little bit more dicey but is still quite a bit better than the city as far as getting your windows broken for a GPS. If you head north of google, so long as you stay out of east palo alto, you are fine, crime-wise, but it's all pretty expensive (except, of course, east palo alto)
Of course, this all depends on your standards. I drive a car that isn't worth much more than a month of my rent; if you have BMW tastes, you are going to have to pay more.
If startups aren't your thing for now, that's OK. Get an offer from Facebook and ask Google for a better deal.
It's great to strive for a better deal and lament about your GSUs, but I wouldn't loose too much sleep on it. Money shouldn't be the first thing you should worry about. IMHO Google is still one of the best companies to work for. Yes, it's more like a corporation and less like a startup but it's still a great place to be for an engineer.
From across the pond it looks like the US is worse for this with grads from Stanford, MIT or CMU having a way easier time of it career-wise. It seems a lot easier to get in those "name" companies.
If he was applying to Google, fresh out of University (outside of the so called 'top 10') and was wondering if he was in with a chance, then that would be a different story, but he's proven his worth in the industry already.
I think straight out of university, at least in my experience here in the States, having a degree from a "known" school helps. That said, it does not prevent you from getting good work, especially if you've already built up a social network.
If you have 11 years experience $110k seems a little low but it might be more than you are getting in UK (I was always paid shit in UK) and cost of living is lower here in the Bay Area (even in SF compared to London). Google is known for paying a little lower than average AND they will expect you to really put in the hours. I don't know many Googlers who actually get to work on their 20% time projects, either.
I personally would move to the City (San Francisco) and commute down in the Google busses.
At this point there are not going to be many firms that will pay the ~$20k for the visa application so I say go for it and then reassess what you REALLY want to do while you are out here.
Best of luck!
A startup looking to sponsor an H1B, based on my experience, is going to be quoted ~$20k in legal + filing fees from a small-medium law firm (ie not Fenwick but not USAVisas.net either [made up site, you get my drift]).
* Compared to Microsoft, Apple, etc... $110k for somebody coming on a visa is still a good deal. If you're local to the valley, then sure you can get a higher number. Nonetheless, this is still competitive.
* If $110k is "too low" for you to live off, even with a family in the valley, you're doing something wrong. Newsflash: there are people here who aren't software engineers (but other educated, technical intelligentsia types) and they live just fine on $70-90k (this is what a physicist I knew at Intel was making, for example).
* Working at Google increases your market value tremendously. As does being local to the valley and having a visa.
* Working for a well-funded, mid-to-late stage startup is another attractive option in the valley (that's what I am doing and I am very happy where I am), but that is hypothetical: you have an offer in your hand from Google and they're sponsoring you from a visa. Take it; if you don't like after a few years, your options are plentiful (if you don't get a raise at Google -- and I'd be surprised if that's the case -- you'll easily be able to get a higher salary elsewhere).
And once you have a visa, you can work for anyone here in the US by just transferring it. Transferring a visa is much much simpler a process than getting a new one.
I think this is a great opportunity to get to the states and work in a great environment. Some of my friends came to the states with $40K starting salary and now they earn about $100K base + bonus(Denver,CO).
I can't second this enough, be sure to stay on top of this and nudge them to file for the Green card at the same time they file for the h1-b or very soon after. Then you can have a green card in no time at all.
I do have a Masters degree but it's in an unrelated field (economics--don't ask). Does that qualify as an "advanced degree"? I assume not since it's not related to my field. Or?
The description I found of the EB2 said an advanced degree or "significant" benefit to the national economy. Heh. That applies?
Make sure you get at least a verbal arrangement with them that they will apply for a greencard for you as soon as you start the job with them.
I would even recommend that if they say they cant do that, then tell them you can bear the cost of it. It should be 10K max I think. But its google ... so I think they will surely have a process.
California law states that as long as the person isn't in direct competition with their employer, they can keep any IP they develop while not on company time. If you work for Google, however, you work for a company who is trying to organize the world's information. So, arguably, pretty much any code you write in your spare time competes with Google.
I have had a number of conversations with Google employees that have told me that they've been prevented from working on outside projects because of this.
Whether Google is on the right side of the law, or not, that's another conversation entirely, but what I'm telling you is from GOOG employees venting to me about work. YMMV
$110k + $25k = $135k.
The salary should be the least of your concerns, that's short term thinking.
A caution: I hope you have at least master's degree, because in this case you'll be able to start EB-2 GC process, which is way faster than EB-3.